The following questions are for Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s “A Meeting in the Dark.” Please select one and draft a response of approximately one page that uses quoted evidence from the short story. Due by 3 pm Wed., Dec. 7.
1. Marxist interpretation: discuss how both religion and
education function as a form of class warfare on the integrity of the Kikuyu
tribe in this short story.
2. Freudian interpretation: describe how Freud’s Oedipus
complex illuminates the hostility or jealousy towards maternal and reproductive
capacities of women in “A Meeting in the Dark.”
3. Feminist interpretation: describe how misogyny destroys tribal
identity.
Kate Paull
ReplyDeleteMr. Woodruff
CCB (period 4)
November 29, 2011
A Meeting in the Dark: Freudian Theory
In Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s story, “A Meeting in the Dark”, the main character, John, becomes overtaken by the Oedipus complex, a concept that describes a child’s unconscious desire for the exclusive love of the parent of the opposite sex. It takes place in three stages, id, ego, and superego. While in the stage of the id, the personality contains the only the primitive emotions (love, hate, etc.); the superego is the part of the personality that contains the conscience; the ego is the personality that creates a balance between the id and the superego. As the story goes, the main character John impregnated Wamuhu; however, he knows that he can’t marry her-a circumcised woman-for it would ruin his chance to go to a university. He fears that his dad will discover his sin so he offers Wamuhu money to blame another man for the baby. She refuses, however, and in a fit of rage John murders her. “The figure was rapidly rising-nine thousand, ten thousand, twenty thousand…He is mad. He is foaming... But he is shaking her, shake, shake, her, her- he tried to hug her by the neck presses… She lets out one horrible scream and then falls on the ground” (110). This quotes displays how John was overtaken by his primitive emotions (anger, greed, etc.) to the extent where he loses all control. He wishes so badly that he could control that which created him and hates that the one thing that creates life is now threatening to ruin his own. Because he is in the stage of the id, his ego cannot create a balance in his emotions, and it results in the murder of Wamuhu.
Brandon Atwood
ReplyDeleteIn A meeting in the Dark by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, there are many ways that one could go about analyzing the story. The parts that are detailed through a Marxist lens are very common throughout the entire story. One of the main aspects of a Marxist lens is in class warfare. This is the struggle people in classes to move up into a higher class and obtain a higher standard of living. In this story there are many examples of how religion and education can be part of this. These two aspects of class warfare even end up threatening John’s tribe. The character John in this story is a prime example of both of these. In part of the story it says, “He was quite unlike the other proud, educated sons of the tribe---sons who came back from the other side of the waters with white or Negro wives who spoke English. And they behaved like Europeans” (100). This shows how many times the men in the village who go to Europe to try and become educated and make a better life for themselves often change during that time. They trying to increase themselves in status or class marry outside of the tribe. This action causes a change in the tribe. Eventually if this happens and continues to happen John’s tribe the Kikuyu, will be gone and completely transformed into something more European. The religion aspect of this is more subtle but still there in large quantity. One example of this is when the author writes, “Then the white men had come, preaching a strange religion, strange ways which all men followed. The tribe’s code of behavior was broken. The new faith could not keep the tribe together” (103). This is talking about the white taking the virginities of the tribes girls. This act due specifically to the religion of the tribe makes the women of the tribe un-pure and unable to become married. These women are put to shame. This threatens the tribe because if continuously more and more women become tainted, the religion and ideas of the tribe will either change or it will fall apart.
Marxist Interpretation
ReplyDelete“A Meeting in the Dark” by Ngugi va Thiong’o tells the story of a boy named John who is caught between cultures in Africa. His father is a civilized preacher who wants John to go to the Western world and be educated. This is troubling for John because he has impregnated Wamuhu, a tribal girl. This causes John to be caught between a tribal lifestyle and a civilized lifestyle. John has to choose between leaving Wamuhu to get an education or staying with Wamuhu and infuriating his father for not getting the intended education. John is not the only one in the story fighting class warfare; the Kikuyu tribe wants to remain tribal and not be westernized like others have been.
The Kikuyu Tribe, the tribe Wamuhu belongs to, is a very traditional African tribe. They still circumcise the women of the tribe, are not educated, and are not followers of the Christian Church. John’s family is the opposite. His father has westernized their family to be educated and followers of the Christian Church that he is a preacher for. While battling the class warfare, John thinks to himself, “Why could he not defy all expectations, all prospects of a future, and marry the girl? No. No. It was impossible. She was circumcised and he knew that his father and the church would never consent to such a marriage. She had no learning—or rather she had not gone beyond standard four. Marrying her would ruin his chances of ever going to a university” (106). This is an example of the class warfare that is in Africa and apart of the story. John cannot marry Wamuhu because of the distinct differences in their religion and education. Marrying a person outside of his class, like Wamuhu, would result in drastic consequences, like not being allowed to get a higher education at a university. When John visits Wamuhu’s family at their hut, there was tension between the family and John. “To be visited by such an educated one, who knew all about the whiteman’s world and knowledge and who would now go to another land beyond, was not such a frequent occurrence that it could be taken lightly” (102). It was evident that the two classes have very little interaction making it strange as to why John would be visiting. Tension between the tribe and the white people is very strong and evident throughout the story. When talking about white people, Wamuhu’s father angrily says, “They are all alike. Those coated with the white clay of the whiteman’s ways are the worst. They have nothing inside” (103). The Kikuyu tribe has hatred towards the white, westernized people and is trying to keep their integrity. Education and religion has drastically changed Africa, leaving many tribes to fight to keep their traditions, while others transformed into westernized people.
Feminist Perspective
ReplyDeleteWomen are the vessels that can grow and nurture new life. They are the ones ultimately responsible for the survival of their offspring after birth. They have the capability to tear a civilization apart simply by having the potential to produce offspring. In the story A Meeting in the Dark, the complications of pregnancy on a small society have been unleashed.
In Makeno Village it is forbidden to have relations with a girl before marriage. Women are essentially seen as objects that are given to a man through marriage in order to produce offspring and serve as a companion. They are perceived as unintelligent people that prepare meals, raise children, and are incapable of understanding men and the way life is. According to John’s father, “women could never understand. Women were women, whether saved or not” (98). In this society, it is taboo to be simply seen with a girl before marriage, and if a boy impregnates a girl before marriage it is an even worse crime. Early in the story John’s father, Stanley, had thought “[Susana] had made him sin but that had been a long time ago” (99). John, the result of that sin, an educated, well respected preacher’s son, does exactly as his parents had, and is now living in fear of its consequences.
Wamuhu is pregnant. She is a young, uneducated girl in the tribe and is carrying a burden that will change her life dramatically. She is hoping that John will marry her, therefore relieving the consequences of their sin, however John has other plans. He has finished all of the schooling offered to him in Kenya and is planning on going to college, but Wamuhu is holding him back. She is carrying his child, and for this he hates her. He hates that she has the ability to produce new life, and he hates that she is using this ability against his wishes. John shared, “I hate [Wamuhu], I hate [Wamuhu]! [Wamuhu] trapped me alive” (100). She is single-handedly destroying his life, all because she is carrying his child. In the end, John tries to bribe her with money in the hopes that she will accept it and tell the other villagers that the infant was created by someone else. She refuses, and as a result John is furious. In his rage he kills her and his unborn child. “Soon everyone will know that he has created and then killed” (110). Her pregnancy and death will tear apart the tribe. It has gone through many changes since the Europeans came and brought Christianity. Makeno Village is holding onto its customs by a thread, and Wamuhu’s pregnancy will disrupt what stability it has left.
Wamuhu drove John to the point of violence. He was furious with her ability to reproduce. Had she not become pregnant, his life would be perfect; he would have become an educated young man that was capable of living in the modern world. His frustration and hatred of Wamuhu ended her life, as well as the life he knew.
Ngugi va Thiong’o's short story A Meeting in the Dark describes the war inside of the main character, John. After being informed that he is to become a Western educated man, John also learns that he impregnated Wamuhu, a young tribal girl. In many ways, the causes and consequences of the sin that these two have committed represents a feminist idea that affects many African tribes and the identity of those tribes.
ReplyDeleteBecause the feelings of many men in African tribes seem to be hostile towards the women, the identity of the tribe seems to be destroyed. The story A Meeting in the Dark draws parallel to this idea in the fact that John has such bitter feelings towards the power Wamuhu holds over him. Since Wamuhu has the ability to be pregnant with his child, and there is nothing John can do about it, his fury causes him to kill her. "John felt as if she was deliberately blackmailing him." John was supposed to leave the squalor of the village to become an educated man, but the power Wamuhu held over him was what ultimately led to his collapse. John felt as though marrying Wamuhu would ruin his chances of ever going to a university. This idea caused even more misogyny and demonstrates how the men of this tribe believe women are the downfall of their chances to be educated. This feminist idea is also represented in the circumcision of women in the tribe. Circumcising a woman is one of the most degrading things possible, and the fact that the men of this tribe encourage it to happen shows the backwards thinking of the tribe. When John had a dream about circumcision, he related the dream to death and despair.
The backwards thinking that the men of the tribe succumb to demonstrates the force that is destroying their tribal identity. The misogyny that overwhelms most of their feelings shows that the role of women in that particular society is almost nonexistent.
Marxist Perspective,
ReplyDeleteNgugi Wa Thiong'os short story A Meeting In The Dark is ripe with Marxist Ideals and traits about class struggles and how certain groups and members of a society can control the society in order to determine how the people in that certain society act. The main character John Is a great example of what Marxist theory calls a divided soul as said by a quote from Paolo Freire, he said “The oppressed suffer from the duality which has established itself in their innermost being. They discover that without freedom they cannot exist authentically… they are at one and the same time themselves and the oppressor whose consciousness they have internalized”. Basically what Freire is saying is that people that are oppressed, both believe in what they are taught by the oppressor and what they know in their hearts to be right. This is shown in A Meeting In The Dark by John being stuck in between staying in the tribe that he knows and loves or leave for school in Europe in a land created by the whiteman which is completely different from what John knows or has learned. Another very prevalent example of class struggle in this short story is how Johns father is the controller of his family and anything that goes on that he or his new westernized religion does not like he bans it. For example, johns mother used to be the story teller, she would tell John great stories of historical significance to the tribe, but once his father became a man of a westernized religion he banned all story-telling from the house. This act also successfully made the mother in a lower class than the father because she no longer possessed the power of story-telling and the father had all the power in the house so therefore it is another perfect example of a class struggle created by those on power or those of the westernized, “civilized” world.
Oedipal Complex
ReplyDeleteAccording to dictionary.com, the Oedipal Complex is described as “a complex of males; desire to possess the mother sexually and to exclude the father; said to be a source of personality disorders if unresolved”. Freud’s theory of the Oedipal complex is one of his most controversial theories; it takes place when a son has a hatred toward their father, and secretly wishes to have the other parent all to themselves. This creates tension between the two of the same sex. In “A Meeting in the Dark” by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, John’s character clearly has a lot of tension with his father.
“John wondered why he feared his father so much. He had grown up fearing him, trembling whenever he spoke or gave commands” (108). Perhaps this was because in his mother’s opinion his father has “always been cruel to him” (98). Growing up John’s mother would tell him stories of his father, Stanley, but soon Stanley, now a man of god, told his mother to stop telling his those stories and “tell him of Jesus. Jesus died for you. Jesus died for the child. He must know the Lord” (98). He would ask about Stanley and his mother would tell him to stop because he dad might be home soon. It was then he began to fear his father and warn him mother every time he saw him coming up the road from work. When John got a woman pregnant, which is a sin before marriage, John feared his Preacher man of God father constantly. Every time he spoke to his father “his heart beat faster and there was that anxious voice within him asking: Does he know?” (97). He knew that his father would not be too pleased with this situation, and that John himself was a product of the same sin between his parents before his father was saved. Maybe that is why Stanley has such high expectations for him; he doesn’t want John to be like him and make that same mistake. Little does Stanley know, it is too late. John has grown up with this tension between him and his father, John feels that his dad looks at him as “a sinner, one who had to be watched all the time” (97). These feelings are the underlying cause of the growing hatred he has toward Stanley.
Marxist,
ReplyDeleteA Meeting in the Dark, by Ngugi wa Thiong'o, tells the story of a young African who belongs to a primitive Kenyan tribe. A major theme of the story is the "divided soul" a Marxist concept in which John faces as he must decide between pursuing his father's ideals or his own ideals. John faces the dilemma of marrying the girl he loves or pursuing a Westernized lifestyle and attending a European university. The taboo of female circumcision is one of the issues preventing John from marrying Wamahu: She was circumcised and he knew that his father and the church would never consent to such a marriage. She had no learning—or rather she had not gone beyond standard four. Marrying her would ruin his chances of ever going to a university” (106). In a sense, John's struggle is parallel to Africa's struggle. Like John, the African continent has struggled to maintain unity and has also struggled with the concept of adapting to Western life and technology. Carl Marx believed that a divided soul cannot exist authentically. It is this premise that destroys John just as it has destroyed the African region. The difficulty and anxiety produced from John's divided soul erupts into tragic violence in the end. "A Meeting in the Dark" metaphorically represents the troubled history of Africa as genocide and violence has ravaged the continent as a result of societal and ideological turmoil.
In the short story “A Meeting in the Dark” by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, it couldn’t be a better example of the Oedipus complex. John, the child in the story, has a dream of going to a big university and would do anything to make it there. Well on his way to achieving that goal of his, he runs into sexual intercourse with Wamuhu; the primitive, animalistic, uncontrollable aspect of the Oedipus complex coming out. To add to this obstacle the tribes newly found religion had new views on the circumcision issue. Completely changing from how it used to be, men would not allow their women to be circumcised. “They would not let their sons marry circumcised girls” as said crystal clear on page 103. This was an enormous red flag for John. Wamuhu was one of the women that were indeed circumcised. After John’s primitive action to get involved in sexual intercourse with the woman, he did end up getting her pregnant. All his aspirations, hopes, and dreams would come crashing down including his greatest in attending a university. With uncontrollable rage and fury flowing through john’s veins, he became violent like every Oedipus complex does. When he got rejected by Wamuhu for the “blaming proposal” to say that it was another man’s doing of her pregnancy, things got messy instantly. Grabbing Wamuhu he choked her out and killed the mother figure in a fit of rage.
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